Murder at Blackwater Bend

by Clara McKenna

  “But it might make me feel better. It has been too long since I’ve sharpened my pugilist skills on someone’s face.” Lyndy stared at his raised fist, imagining it connecting with Barlow’s cheekbone.

  Believing he was jesting, Stella smiled. Lyndy had spoken in earnest. He’d been quite the fighter at Eton, but her smile was enough to assuage his anger. If she was willing to let the matter drop, so could he, for now.

  “But, speaking of hitting someone in the face, I haven’t told you what my cook told me earlier.” Stella relayed what she’d learned: rumors about Fairbrother’s blackmailing schemes, his supposed violence toward Philippa, about Philippa’s infidelity. Only the latter seemed believable. But then again, Lyndy never dreamed someone would murder Fairbrother either.

  “Do you think I should tell the police?” Stella asked.

  “And what, have them suspect Philippa?” It had its appeal. But Lyndy wanted nothing more to do with Philippa, even if it meant keeping her dirty secrets. “No. Who cares about Philippa? Remember, too; it’s just servant gossip.”

  “Servants know more than you give them credit. Besides, once Mr. Barlow tells them about the knife he saw, they’ll arrest Harvey.” Stella groaned. “Oh, Lyndy, Harvey probably doesn’t even know how much trouble he’s in.”

  “Then we’ll have to inform him. Fancy a ride?” he said.

  Stella’s face lit up. He never tired of seeing appreciation and affection in that smile. If only he knew how to get that magical reaction on demand.

  “Do you think we can find him?” How immeasurably satisfying it was that she knew what he was suggesting. She couldn’t read his thoughts, thank goodness, but to have a woman understand him might be that much better. “Mr. Barlow said he saw him on his way to Morrington Hall. Could Harvey still be by the river?”

  “I say we find out.”

  To his astonishment, Stella enveloped him with her arms and pressed a kiss to his mouth, the taste of salty tears he’d never seen on her lips. But before he could return her embrace, she released him, swiveled on her heels, and bolted toward the stables. He had no choice but to follow.

  CHAPTER 23

  Lyndy, directing the groom to saddle Beau, paused at the sight of Stella leading Tully toward him. What a transformation. And not just for the horse. Yes, Tully, her eyes bright, her ears twitching, and with a healthy shine to her coat, walked steady and sure down the aisle, but Stella—Stella was beaming. Not a trace of her earlier anger and frustration left on her face. Lyndy couldn’t help but smile.

  “Doesn’t she look wonderful?” Stella asked, gazing adoringly up at the horse as she stroked its neck.

  “Yes, she does,” he said, reaching out and tracing the curve of Stella’s soft, supple cheek with the back of his fingers. He wasn’t talking only about the thoroughbred. Stella, enthralled by her horse, didn’t even seem to notice. It was just as well. They were on a mission.

  Lyndy plucked a strand of straw from Stella’s shoulder and tossed it to the ground. Why could she never enter a horse box without coming away with something clinging to her? What did she do, roll in it? The thought led to an image he hastened to banish from his mind. Oh, how he’d rather roll in the straw with her than search for the snakecatcher. But he’d made a promise. Lyndy tugged down on the cuffs of his dinner jacket.

  “We can thank Harvey for your swift recovery, can’t we, Tully,” Stella said, snuggling into the horse’s neck. A melancholy had crept into her voice.

  “Shall we, then?” Lyndy said, indicating the horses patiently waiting to ride. Stella nodded enthusiastically.

  Lyndy waved off the groom and helped Stella into Tully’s saddle, the train of silk dress dangling to one side. Stella tucked it up into her lap, careful not to reveal her stockinged leg. Not their usual riding attire, without question, but Lyndy could care less; he was as eager as she to ride. With her secure, he bounded up onto Beau, took the reins, and then the proffered lantern from the groom, and they were off.

  Once past the paddocks and grazing lawns surrounding Morrington Hall, they cantered across the heath, the moonlight enough to easily avoid the dark clusters of gorse, heather, and bracken. What had been a light breeze on Morrington’s threshold was a brisk wind, blowing at their uncovered heads. It was exhilarating. Then they passed beneath the overhanging boughs of a woodland. Here a stillness pervaded, broken only by the rhythmic breathing of the horses. The glow of the lantern was all the light that pierced the darkness. They slowed their horses to a walk, Stella staying so close he could hear her stomach grumble.

  We should’ve thought to bring a picnic.

  But then, as they cleared the trees, their shadows stretching out far in front of them, he remembered their somber task. But as to their spontaneous departure, he had yet to regret it. As they trotted back out on the open heath again, he drew a deep breath, filling his lungs with fresh, moist, summer air. It more than made up for his empty stomach.

  The rippling sound of the river reached them long before they detected its dark, sinuous thread and made their way to the well-trodden spot in the bend. Harvey was nowhere to be seen. They trotted a mile downstream with no success. They retraced their steps back upstream, following close to the bank, Stella nervously glancing down into the rushing water.

  “He won’t be in there,” Lyndy said, reassuring her.

  She nodded and gave him a weak smile as if she agreed she was silly to think so, but Lyndy saw the look in her eyes as she searched the dark, flowing water. She wasn’t so confident he was right. The thrill of a nightjar rang out, and she snapped her head up.

  “What was that?” she uttered suspiciously, pulling back on Tully’s reins, forcing the horse to a halt.

  “It’s just a bird.” Stella must be on edge if the birdsong startled her.

  She chuckled nervously, before clicking her tongue to her horse to proceed forward again. After continuing upstream for another quarter of a mile, they came across a pockmarked farmer and his teenage son packing up for the night. The water in the tin pail beside their dogcart writhed with trout.

  “Successful night?” Lyndy asked. The lad and his father quickly slipped the caps from their heads. If they questioned the formal dinner attire Lyndy and Stella were wearing they didn’t let it show on their faces.

  “Yes, thank you, milord.” The father addressed Lyndy, while the lad stared openly at Stella. It had taken getting used to, men and women gawking at his future bride, but like Stella, Lyndy had learned it was part and parcel with their new life. “On behalf of our family, we’d like to offer our deepest sympathies, miss. We hope your misadventure didn’t put you off fishing.”

  The pair, who couldn’t help but recognize him, the earl’s heir, so too knew, if only by association, who Stella was. And more of it, they knew what misfortune had befallen her.

  “We’re rather keen on knowing a lady that likes to fish,” the lad blurted. “Even if she’s an American.” The father jabbed his son in the ribs with his elbow.

  “Thank you,” Stella said. “Both of you.” She smiled at the lad, and his face quickly resembled a beetroot. “I appreciate your concern, but I’m tougher than I look. Besides, now that I’ve been in that river, nothing could put me off fishing its waters again.”

  The two men nodded, awkward grins widening on their faces. Like everyone, at least almost everyone, the “American” had won these men over with her straightforward manner and genuine kindness. A sudden flash of irritation swelled up in him. How was it that simple countrymen like these could empathize with Stella, and wish her well, when his mother wouldn’t treat her with common courtesy?

  “We’re looking for the snakecatcher,” Lyndy said, his voice taut with frustration. “He was supposedly seen here earlier.”

  Both men nodded, but it was the father who spoke. “Aye, milord. Harvey was here, all right. Pulled in several beauties, even with carriages rumbling by spooking the fish. I don’t know how he does it. He should be called the trout catcher. But he left a
while back.” He was here and doing nothing remotely nefarious. At least there was that.

  “Could you tell which way he went?” Stella asked.

  The men shook their heads. “Who can say. He’s a bit odd, that one.”

  “Why do you say that?” Stella asked, sounding a mite defensive. She’d accepted crude comments about herself, but she wouldn’t suffer them about Harvey. Lyndy silently chuckled. Leave it to Stella to have a soft spot for horses and hermits.

  “Well, seeing how he was reeling them in, Jimmy and me made it to where Harvey was catching ’em,” the father explained. “Thought we might try our luck. When we moved to the spot, he was gone all right, but there was all his fish.” The fisherman shook his head in disbelief. “Why would a man leave his dinner wriggling on the bank, is what I’d like to know?”

  “I can’t possibly guess why,” Lyndy said as Stella flashed him a worried look. “But the reason can’t be good.”

  * * *

  “Mr. Heppenstall! Mr. Heppenstall!” The pub door swung open, and the boy stumbled across the threshold.

  What was it now? Tom flung the towel from his shoulder and slapped it against the bar. Wasn’t it enough the police had to come and disrupt his customers? Couldn’t the boy do one simple task without a fuss?

  “Why haven’t you gone after George Parley? You were to see he got safely on his way.”

  “I know, Mr. Heppenstall, but . . . but Mr. Parley’s pony is still outside and . . .”

  “And?”

  The boy raised a hand. Smears of something slick and bright red covered his palm. “It’s bleeding.”

  Tom didn’t hesitate. He bounded around the end of the bar, hobbling as fast as his ankle would allow. In his wake, chairs scraped against the floorboards as men, pints still in hand, clamored to follow. George Parley’s pony, its reins hanging loose on the ground, had joined two free-ranging donkeys in grazing on the green across from the pub. When Old Joe, more youthful than his name implied, got to the pony first and led it gently toward the streetlamp, Tom called out for its owner. A chorus of voices joined him.

  “George? George? George Parley! George?”

  Men fanned out, some crossing to the green, some heading down Rosehurst’s high street. Tom, Old Joe, and the boy stayed with the pony. Alarmed by the commotion, the villagers abandoned their late supper or needlework and turned up lights, drew back curtains, and peered into the street. Tom watched as the men called out in vain.

  “George Parley! Where are you, George? George?”

  “How is it?” Tom asked Old Joe, turning back toward the pony.

  “A bit peckish,” Old Joe said, running his hands along the pony’s withers as it tried to munch on the nearby flower bed, “but brilliant otherwise.” He patted the pony firmly on the shoulder. It whinnied softly and nudged Old Joe, trying to get past him and back to the grass.

  “But the blood?” The boy held up his palm again. It had already begun to dry in a darker shade of crimson.

  “I’ve seen but one splotch of blood, on its neck,” Old Joe said. “That must be what you touched, lad.” The boy nodded. “But there’s no cuts to its skin anywhere that I can find.”

  “Then where did the blood come from?” the boy asked, rubbing his palm against his trousers.

  “From George,” Tom said. It made sense. He’d broken a pint glass with his bare hand. “He probably patted the pony just as the boy did.”

  “Makes sense,” Old Joe said, releasing his grip on the pony’s reins. It ambled over to the back wall of the pub and began happily clipping the weeds. “But why leave his pony behind?”

  “You know what George is like in his cups,” Tom said. “Can’t tell what he’ll do.” Old Joe nodded knowingly.

  “What is it doing?” The lad pointed toward the pony. Pawing the ground, the animal was poking its muzzle into what looked like a hole in the wall. A hole Tom had never noticed before.

  “Fetch me a lantern,” Tom ordered. The boy raced back inside.

  When the boy finally returned (he could’ve walked to Bournemouth and back in the time it took him) the men from the pub had given up their search and were clustered around Tom and Old Joe. Many sipped at the pints still in their hands or murmured complaints about the chill, but no one spoke of the dread they were all feeling. Where was George Parley? He couldn’t have gotten far.

  The boy handed over the lantern—leave it to him to fetch the dented tin one Tom had planned to toss—and Tom held it up. Light and shadows sprawled across the base of the back wall. There, on the level with the ground, was a hollowed-out space big enough for a man to crawl through. Where had that come from? With his bad ankle, Tom couldn’t kneel to shine the light in the hole, let alone crawl inside. He handed the lantern to Old Joe.

  “There’s something down there, but I can’t tell what it is,” Old Joe said, peering into the hole.

  “See what it is then, lad,” Tom ordered. The boy lay on his belly and took the lantern from Old Joe. He lowered it down the hole. Tom was surprised to see the light disappear completely. The boy slithered in after it up to his waist. Loose gravel trickled down in small streams around him.

  “Perhaps a wounded dog dug a hole to my basement?” Tom speculated out loud. “Or a badger?”

  The boy slipped back and poked his head up. “Ah, Mr. Heppenstall. You’re not going to fancy what I found.”

  “Well, what is it?”

  “You’ve got to see for yourself.”

  Tom sighed as he limped over. Leaning hard against the wall, he slid down its length onto one knee and then the other. Peering into the hollow, he saw nothing but a hard-packed dirt floor. That wasn’t his cellar. Could there be a sub-basement he didn’t know about? Tom had heard about pubs predating the smuggling days that hid contraband in sub-basements. He just never knew the Knightwood Oak had one.

  Straining his back, Tom crouched down further. Pine boughs, covered with potato sacks, lined the opposite side of the floor. Bits and bobs littered the rest of the space: empty glass bottles, some Tom recognized as coming from his wine cellar, empty biscuit tins, a tin mug, a small sack of coffee, a chipped teapot, varying lengths of twine. Evidence of a small fire blackened the corner closest to the hole. The room smelled of smoke, whiskey, and pickles. Someone, and Tom could guess who, had been living down there. The snakecatcher no longer had a roof to call his own, after all.

  “Well, lad,” Tom said, holding his aching back and sitting back on his heels. “I think we’ve found your ghost.”

  * * *

  Lyndy hadn’t been here before. He’d glimpsed the snakecatcher’s hut from a distance and never thought it amounted to much, a jumble of salvaged boards, bark, and thatch. Only the stone chimney, a tower of fieldstone once belonging to a previous cottage built two hundred years before, was of any consequence. But that now lay in rubble upon the bed of white ash. Someone didn’t merely put a torch to the hut, they methodically destroyed the chimney, and with it, Harvey’s claim to the rights of common attached to it.

  “What a waste,” Lyndy muttered, kicking the scorched remains of a wall hook. The snakecatcher had accused Fairbrother of doing this, but why? Lyndy couldn’t imagine what Fairbrother, or anyone, could’ve gained from such petty violence.

  “I don’t see any sign of Harvey,” Stella said, ducking under a low-hanging branch as she and Tully returned to the clearing. She’d insisted on circling the area for the hermit. “But his pony is still in the paddock. He’ll have to come back for her eventually.”

  “But we have no way of knowing when. I say we call it a night and come back at first light.” Stella reluctantly nodded.

  Swinging back up into the saddle, Lyndy brushed aside further thoughts of Harvey Milkham’s whereabouts, his sights set on procuring a cutlet, some warm bread, and a scotch the moment he got home. A hush descended as they crossed Wosset Moor, the spongy lichen and moss-covered ground absorbing the horses’ footfalls. Such a magnificent night. And to think, trapped enterta
ining Mother’s guests back at Morrington Hall, they would’ve missed it. Lyndy closed his eyes, letting Beau navigate the way, and filled his lungs with the sweet scent of the moor.

  “Harvey?” Stella said hesitantly after several minutes of silence. Lyndy, lulled by the quiet and the rhythmic gait of the horse, peeked out through one eye and spotted a figure in the distance staggering through the heather, broom, and gorse. The person was making his or her way toward Furzy Barrow.

  “Harvey?” Stella called, loudly this time, spurring Tully to a gallop. Lyndy shot up straight and tapped his heels into Beau’s barrel and chased after her.

  “I’ll show you,” the figure yelled, slurring his words and shaking his fist in the air. “I’ll show bloody everybody.” That didn’t sound like the old snakecatcher.

  Arriving at the barrow first, the outraged man rummaged through a canvas-covered box left by Papa and Professor Gridley, the tools clanking against one another as he fished about for something. He produced a long-handled shovel and clambered up the undug side of the hill. Stopping at the crest, he thrust the shovel into the earth and frantically began scooping soil into the pit. Moonlight reflected off the figure’s nearly bald head.

  What was George Parley doing? Did he think he could single-handedly fill in the barrow? It was far too big. Besides, Papa and Professor Gridley weren’t done excavating it.

  Stella, reaching the barrow before Lyndy, slipped from her saddle, her silk dress shimmering as she flipped the train over her arm. Lyndy leaped off Beau as Stella scaled the slope. But before either of them reached the disgruntled landowner, George Parley began flailing about, flapping his arms in the air as if trying to catch his balance.

  “Bollocks!” George Parley yelled as he disappeared, headfirst, into the pit as the land beneath him gave way. The shovel, flung from the man’s grip, clattered against the wooden plank on the other side. Puffs of dust, smelled more than seen, announced Parley’s contact with the earthen floor below. The man’s voice went silent.

  “Mr. Parley? Are you okay?” Stella said, reaching the edge first. She peered down, and her hand flew up to cover her eyes. “Oh, God!” She twisted around, turning her back, the train of her dress slipping from her arm and puddling in a swirl around her. Lyndy scrambled to the top of the mound.